Report renews debate over Atkins' effects.

Byline: Tim Christie The Register-Guard

Are you on The Zone or South Beach? Or are you an old-school Atkins kind of person?

If you're not on one of these popular high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets, chances are you know someone who is.

Millions of people have used the Atkins and similar diets to shed weight, confounding the conventional medical wisdom that says we should be eating diets low in fat and high in fiber.

Adding to the mix is the debate about how healthy the diets are. The latest salvo in the diet holy wars came Thursday, when a group called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine released a report that linked the Atkins diet with health problems ranging from bad breath and constipation to loss of energy and heart disease.

The report was immediately denounced by Atkins Nutritionals, the company that makes various products associated with the diet.

With all the conflicting information, what's a dieter to do?

There's no question Atkins helps some people lose weight, but its long-term health effects aren't yet known, said Diane Stadler, a bionutritionist and assistant research professor at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

"We know these diets can cause weight loss, and that's wonderful, but what we don't know is whether there are any risks associated with these diets that are hidden by the fact you are losing weight," she said.

Two long-term, federally funded studies of the Atkins diet are under way, but results won't be known for several years.

People thinking of going on the Atkins should talk to a medical professional first and get their blood fat, blood pressure and other health indicators checked, and then get a check-up after six months to make sure they're not suffering side effects from the diet.

For medical professionals who hew to the conventional wisdom that we should eat a low-fat diet, Atkins is "very much a conundrum," she said. But they need to keep an open mind, she said.

"People are going to use this diet and we need to help them do it in the most healthful way."

A number of credible medical studies have shown the Atkins diet to work in helping people lose weight, at least in the short term, including two studies published last May in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Last week, researchers from Tufts-New England Medical Center reported results of a study that compared Atkins with three other diets: The Zone, Weight Watchers and Dean Ornish.

Researchers assigned 40 people to each of the diets for a year, and found that those who stuck with the diets lost about 5 percent of their body weight, regardless of the method.

The source for the latest report from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine was a Web site where Atkins followers could report problems they had with the diet.

Of 188 people who visited the www.atkinsdietalert.org, nearly one in five reported serious complaints, such as heart and kidney problems.

Such a report has no scientific validity, Stadler said. "It's a way to collect very subjective, biased information," she said.

The group also reported the deaths of two people on Atkins-style diets from cardiac arrest.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has been a harsh critic of the Atkins diet.

The group advocates for a vegetarian lifestyle and animal rights and has campaigned against the dairy and cattle industries. It also has been linked in news reports to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the radical animal rights organization.

Atkins Nutritionals blasted the report, telling WebMD, a health-related Web site, that the group was "exploiting obesity and diabetes crisis in this country to further its own vegan political and philosophical agenda."

An Atkins spokeswoman said there was "no logic and no science" to link the two deaths to the Atkins diet, just as it makes no sense to link the thousands of people who die from heart or kidney disease while following a low-fat diet.

Dr. Daniel Hardt, a naturopathic physician in Eugene, said controversy over the Atkins diet is more complicated than it needs to be.

"This is one of the easiest things in the medical nutritional field there is," he said.

For about 30 percent of the population, "It's really a save-your-life diet," he said.

Atkins works for those people who have a problem converting carbohydrates into energy, he said. If they can't turn it into energy, it gets turned into fat.

One good indicator is the level of triglycerides, one of the two main blood fats along with cholesterol. A normal triglyceride level is 100 to 110. Anyone with a level of more than 180 or 200 is a good candidate for Atkins, he said.

"These people almost universally do well on the Atkins diet," he said.

MORE INFORMATION

These Web sites have independent information about the Atkins and other diets:

www.webmd.com

www.intelihealth.com